Paul’s Inferno Build/Ownership Log/Photo Dump Thread

Been wanting to start one of these for a while now to track any modifications and trips as well as general ownership stuff.

Bought the truck new in March 2018. It was my first new vehicle purchase so that was cool. Goals are just a nice, comfortable daily that I can still do fun things with.

Basic info:
2018 Tacoma TRD Off-Road 4x4
Premium & Technology Package
Only other option was the all-weather floor mats





My interior came with the gunmetal trim, but I really like how the orange trim looks with the inferno paint so I ordered some new OEM pieces and swapped those out.





Also threw a bed mat in. Simple, but it has really helped with things not sliding around in the back.



Plus a couple of random pictures I took when it was still all new and shiny

 

Next I added Carhartt seat covers on the rear seats for the pups. The bench seats are pretty simple/flat so these fit well. I’ve had them for about 10 months now and am a big fan on the back seats. Dog hair vacuums up really easily and when they get covered in mud they’re easy to remove and throw in the washing machine. More on the seat covers coming up.

 

In May I went exploring a bit. This wasn’t much more than some light trail riding, but it was fun to get off pavement and the pup seemed to like it a lot too.





And then put it to use picking up some supplies for work



Read here on TW about extending the A/C drain, so I put a piece of heater hose on it. Quick and simple.

 

In June I found an OEM tonneau and OEM Pro Grille (

$281 PT228-35170 Toyota Genuine Parts - TRD Pro Grill Tacoma (PT228-35170)

PT228-35170) for sale locally so I picked those up. I added an OEM garnish for the TSS sensor and have not had any issues with it since.

Thoughts on the tonneau: I wanted a lockable and pretty secure area in the back which this does a good job of. It stays relatively dry, with a few drops in during heavier rain but I haven’t tried to chase down all leaking spots yet (one of them is a broken piece in between the 1st and 2nd sections of the tri-fold which you can see is missing in the picture). Install was easy, including cutting the rail caps since the PO did not have those to swap. I have removed it once since installing and that is ~5 minute job. Only “difficult” part is that it’s not the lightest or smallest thing to try and store.

 

Since I liked the Carhartt seat covers on the rears, I thought I would try them out on the front as well. They fit ok if you take your time and tighten down the straps. It definitely takes some messing around with and even then, they don’t really contour to the seats well. They also slide around a little bit since they are on top of leather. I think I would like them a lot more if I had cloth seats.


After a few trips, these got some mud on them so I took off the front and rears to wash. I ended up finding some markings on the leather:






I had read about the covers potentially marking the seats, but had hoped that washing before installing would have taken away that risk. Thankfully all it took was some leather cleaner to get the seats all cleaned up. I ran without the covers on the front for a while and now have recently reinstalled them, but haven’t had a chance to see if they are still leaving marks.

 

In August I took a day trip up to Huntington, PA for Mid-Atlantic Overland Festival. It was a fun event where I was able to do a little bit of driving, attend a couple of technical talks and made some good friends. I took one of my pups and he had a blast walking around the property and meeting the other dogs there too. I wanted to stay longer, but had some plans for the following day (next post).

 

The next day I drove down for a day trip wheeling at Flagpole Knob near Harrisonburg, VA. It was a fun trip getting to actually test the truck out off-road. I was really impressed with how it does completely stock, learned a ton, met a great group of people and the pup had a good time. We got a little bit of rain near the top so that made the trail a little more fun too.

 

In August I installed Mobtown Offroad Bed Bars. My main use is to carry the bike around - I was able to reuse my bike rack from my Jetta so that was a plus. Install was straight-forward and this allows me to keep the OEM tonneau as well. The other feature I really like is how quickly I can remove the crossbars if needed. There have been a couple of times since install where I have needed more/open use of the bed and it is just a couple minute task to remove the bolts holding the cross bars, leaving the supports in place to have full usage of the bed.

 

September was my 6month/5k mile service. I have always done my own service on my cars, but figured I would take advantage of the Toyota Care for now. The dealership was really cool about me going into the shop and taking a look at it while up on the lift. I saw the stock skid plate has definitely been working on my limited trails so far. I also went out and explored some more.

 

I’ve got some catching up to do on this thread.

In November 2018 I took a trip down to Hendersonville, North Carolina for Overland Expo East. We went down and camped on site Thursday-Sunday. Yes it was cold, and yes it got pretty muddy towards the end, but it was a really fun trip.

We stopped at a few places on the way down and spent time on Friday when it was raining to drive around Hendersonville/Asheville as well as do some hiking at DuPont State Forest. Most of our time there we spent walking around the vendor area, hiking the on-site trails, and talking with other people attending. There were also lots of really interesting vehicles throughout the camping area and the Great Smoky Mountains were an amazing backdrop. Ended up meeting a bunch of cool people and learning a lot while we were there. It was fun doing this trip with Ike and he was perfect with everything – the drive, hiking, camping, weather.

 

Quick mod that I probably should have done earlier – extended the rear differential breather in December 2018. I used OEM Toyota parts for the union and breather:

Union part number:

$8 90404-51319 Toyota Genuine Parts - Union (90404-51319)

90404-51319
Breather part number:

$8 90930-03136 Toyota Breather Plug - 90930-03136

90930-03136

This breather is a 2-way, not just a vent like the stock one is. I used 6’ of 3/8” fuel hose and routed to behind the driver’s side taillight leaving slack for when the suspension flexes.

 

Nice

 

Time to get the thread caught up some more

In December 2018 I also picked up some GOAT truck armor. I was planning on just writing an initial review, but now that I’ve had it for a while, I’ve got a little more I can share.

GOAT armor are magnetic body panels for the truck to help minimize trail pinstripes. Solid black was the only option when I bought the armor but now they have a bunch of different patterns available and you can even specify a pantone color code.

Before I bought the armor I had some questions I had sent the owner of the company, Matt. He was really quick to respond and help clarify. At that time he also was able to mix options (badged front door and “non-badged” option for the bedside). During the order shipping process Matt was in touch again, even calling when there was a problem with shipping. Customer service was absolutely amazing.

The GOAT armor is shipped in a cardboard tube with the (8) pieces for each side on a sheet of the magnetic vinyl. The pieces are scored so they are easy to tear away from the sheet.

It was a little tough lining it up the first time, but you learn pretty quickly which body lines to follow to get everything to sit correctly. Overall, I’ve been really pleased with these. They do what I got them to do – a lot of the trails here in VA can get tight and the panels show what would have otherwise been on the paint. After a trip I’ll do a quick wash while they’re still on the truck and then remove and wipe both sides before storing again. The toughest part of these is storage. When they’re not a part of the full sheet they are a little annoying to get lined up and rolled back into the tube, but that’s getting a little picky. The extra 30ish minutes of install and removal are worth it for me to keep the pinstripes at bay.

 

Had been trying to plan a trip for a little while and ending up finding an okay weekend in February to get out. Parts of the trail were still a little icy but it was still a good trip. Camping was cold and windy and we ended up getting some rain in the middle of the night. Still really impressed with what the truck is able to do in stock form.

 

I picked up some Mobtown Offroad Sliders in February 2019. Ordered them bare steel, 20deg (only option at the time) and with fill plates. If I was ordering again I would add the powdercoating option too.

Being that it was winter, and the weather was pretty bad, it took me a while to get everything cleaned up and painted. Also, the prep work just took a lot of time. Everything I had read about painting stressed the importance of prepping the metal for paint so I spent a lot of time with a wire wheel, 80grit sandpaper, scotch brite pads and acetone/IPA to clean it up. That was followed with 2 coats of Rust-Oleum Self-Etching Primer and then 4 coats of Rust-Oleum Professional Enamel in flat black. In total, for the two sliders and hardware, I used 5 cans of the primer and 5 cans of the paint.

It took me about 7 weeks between when I picked them up to when I got them installed. There was definitely bad weather during that time I had to deal with, but a lot of it was the prep/painting process. Installation was easier with a friend. We started on the driver’s side first which required removing more things so by the time we got to the passenger side things went much quicker. In all I think this took about 4 hours to get them installed. In the end, I was really pleased with how they turned out. Over the past year they’ve held up really well too. They’ve helped me out a few times off road and fixing any scrapes are easy with the same paint/primer.

 

In July 2019 we were down by Uwharrie for a wedding so we were able to spend two days on the trails. I kept on the easy stuff but it was still a fun couple of days and the terrain was a little different than what I’m usually on. It was cool to see some of the trails dedicated for OHVs.

On the first day we did Slab Pile and Wolf Den and then we ran Falls Dam on the second day.

Having sliders on here was a nice reassurance over some of the rocky sections. There was some rain in the middle of our run on the second day which added to the fun. The biggest issue I ran into on these two days/trails was breakover. The trails I ran at Uwharrie have water bars (slopes that are basically like big speedbumps to help with preventing erosing). These proved a little difficult for the stock height/ tires on my truck. I was taking most of the water bars at an angle to try and keep the y-pipe from hitting.

 

Didn’t do anything else to the truck through the summer or fall, but had a chance to get out and camp a few more times and had a chance to run the trails at night on one of the trips.

 

Last winter I added a Salex center console organizer and tray. This one is really minor, but is something I wish I had done from the start. The center console storage area had turned into a mess of stuff and I could never really grab what I needed out of it. The dividers fit in there really well and the tray keeps things like my sunglasses within easy reach.

In December I picked up the RCI Transmission Skid Plate in aluminum. I like how this mates up the TRD Pro front skid and aluminum should be sufficient for the type of trails I am going on for now. I’d like to extend this back further with a transfer case skid as well but want to either do an exhaust reroute or put another y-pipe that gives me that clearance first.

 

I had been wanting a cap for a little while to increase my cargo space and found one in February 2020. This is an A.R.E. CX with sliding side windows and screens, front fold down/sliding window and carpeted headliner.

I needed to get the 3rd brake light connected and most of the information I had found led to tapping the taillight brake light wire. I didn’t want to tap any wires so I made an adapter to make that connection using some OEM Toyota taillight sockets/connectors. I was able to fish this around and come up under the bed rails so no wire cutting/no drilling required.

 

In June I finally got around to relocating the data USB port to the center console. I always have an ipod hooked up and didn’t like using the only USB port up front/having the wiring just sit out. To relocate the connection, I used a 3ft USB/aux extender off Amazon. After removing the 12v port in the center console, and with a little persuasion, the extender was able to sit in that same spot without enlarging the hole. I routed the wiring up on the driver’s side of the console and connected to the stock USB/aux port behind the dash. The 3 feet was just enough wire to make this connection and was a little tough dealing with a limited amount of space behind the dash.

To fill the blank switch location in the dash where the USB/aux used to be, I grabbed a dual USB/voltmeter socket made to fit the small Toyota switch locations off Amazon. I put some male spade connectors on the ends of the included wiring and plugged them into the connector that had previously powered the center console 12v outlet. Now there are two USB outlets available if I need and having a voltage display is nice as well.